On Saturday, 30 December 2017, for the third consecutive day, thousands of Iranians took to the street in Tehran and other cities across Iran peacefully to protest against the theocratic regime.

The slogans heard on the streets of Iran make it clear once again that the Iranian people have had enough of the brutal theocratic rule and the paralysing corruption in their country. The popular protests in recent days also lay bare the people’s frustration over the lack of social and economic opportunities and their national wealth being spent on promoting terrorism, terrorist groups and sectarian division in the region as well as maintaining a vicious crackdown on popular dissent at home.

This echoes what the NCRI president-elect, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, said on the first day of these protests: “The lion’s share of the Iran’s wealth and revenues is spent on military and security apparatus, war and intervention in the region, or is plundered by the regime’s leaders and deposited in their family accounts.”

Videos posted on social media and reports from the network of Iranian opposition, the PMOI, inside Iran show that the regime’s only response is to dispatch repressive security forces to crush the anti-regime protests and arrest protesters in order to prevent them from continuing in the coming days and spreading across the country. This demonstrates that the theocratic leaders in Tehran are neither willing nor capable of fulfilling the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.

Today, the Iranian people are exercising their universal right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. We condemn the Iranian regime’s crackdown on these peaceful protests.

We call on the UK government and the international community to stand with the Iranian people as they express their desire for change in their country, by condemning the regime’s crackdown and by supporting the popular aspirations for a free and democratic Iran.